The whole point of reviewing is to be critical. To be objective. To be truthful. I am upholding all of these principles when I say that Taproot Theatre’s final production of the season, an adaptation of Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville, is the funniest thing I have seen in years. I spent two hours and ten minutes […]

The news cycle for the 2016 presidential race has been full of stories questioning candidates’ personal and political integrity. In the midst of this contentious political climate, Taproot Theatre presents Suzanne Bradbeer’s The God Game. This nuanced, compelling drama explores a politician’s struggle to balance his career, religious views, integrity, and family.

The Pocket Theater’s Two Man Tempest, though ambitious, fails to take the viewer by storm.
Two Man Tempest parodies Shakespeare’s classic story of magic, romance, and revenge. The 45-minute show, performed by Kendall Uyeji, Danny Lacker, and audience volunteers, is clearly the result of a lot of hard work. It features several rapid costume changes, puppetry, rap, and water guns, and leaves the actors visibly drenched in sweat before the end of Act 2. Despite the effort, these technical elements do little to make the show enjoyable. The script doesn’t pick up the slack. The jokes are weak, and they aren’t helped by the actors’ delivery or inability to stay in character.

The opening funny scene is a harried waitress (Elise) calling to get cake inscription instructions correct. There’s a strong chance the inscription may read “Congratulations New Dog” which is not what Leah intended. The word she wanted did start with “d” as in “Dad.”

Then there’s Mark’s mother Helen who swoops back into their apartment claiming the flights out of Seatac were cancelled, a next door neighbor Patrick who hadn’t really introduced himself

The Pocket Theater opened its four week run of Saturday Morning Cartoons Saturday April 18th. With the tag line “Short plays inspired by ‘Toons written by families, for families”, it doesn’t disappoint. With the playful atmosphere, children chattering and laughing, you are smiling before the show even begins. Directed by Steven Sterne, the ensemble generates […]

The Explorers Club, a comedy about the London Explorers Club of 1879, opened last weekend at Taproot Theatre. Directed by Karen Lund, the hillarious play was the highlight of my weekend as I enjoyed the nice balance of cheeky British humor and silly, slapstick American humor. There are quips, jokes, one-liners and physical humor that […]

No Yardstick to Measure Species, No Name for the Plants of the Drought

Thalia’s Umbrella opened its performance of A Lesson from Aloes by playwright Athol Fugard at Isaac Studio Theater of Taproot Theater, Greenwood, North Seattle, on 10 October, Friday. Directed by Daniel Wilson, with Terry Edward Moore, who is also the producing artistic director, as Piet, Pam Nolte as Gladys and William Hall, Jr as Steve, A Lesson from Aloes is Thalia’s Umbrella’s second production.

Marianne Savell excels as the sole performer in The Amish Project about the shooting of school girls at the West Nickels Mines School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on October 2, 2006. Robert Quinlan directs this powerful fictionalized account by Jessica Dickey in the small and intimate Isaac Studio at Taproot Theatre. Isaac Studio is the right space for this, it seats 120 and with a bare set by Mark Lund of a hanging window and a simple wooden chair, it suggest the aggressive “simplicity” of the Amish as understood in our popular imagination.

The facts this play is based on read like yet another tragic school massacre:

In the Book of … directed with a sure hand by Scott Nolte, had its regional premiere on Friday, March 28 at the Taproot Theatre in the Greenwood neighborhood. This is a first-rate production all around, and it helped that John Walch has written a play that is at times witty, touching, sad, and realistic.